Access roads and other geotechnical structures

Mines are, in many respects, small cities. They require roads, water, power, waste management, food, safety, housing, etc. Access roads are especially integral to a mine’s viability. Ore must move around and away from the site. Shipments of supplies must not be impaired. Site access delays of a single day can cost a lot. Extended interruption in access to the site can threaten the mine’s continued operation, as investors and mine owners might no longer consider it economically viable.

The massive vehicles used in mining today require extremely strong roads. Haulers carry payloads of more than 100 tons. For ore, oil sands, rock, and coal operations, the roads must sustain repeated passings of these vehicles over years of mine activities.

Geogrid reinforcement materials and separation geotextiles are used to redistribute the tensile forces within the road and prevent the mixing of fi nes and coarse aggregate. The increased road strength mitigates the risk of road erosion and rutting in wet or arid mining environments.

These same reinforcement, separation, and drainage control materials are used in various other geotechnical applications in mining. The diffi cult terrain that characterizes many sites requires a number of vertical or near vertical constructions to be built, such as to support crusher walls. Mechanically stabilsed earth (MSE) walls, reinforced with geosynthetics, are a common and effective strategy. Also, there are embankments, abutments, operating pads beneath heavy equipment and cranes, and many other points at which soils must be reinforced to enable the little city that a mine is to function as designed.

Secutex® geotextiles deliver filter stability and robust protection for high-level performance in protection, separation, filtration, and drainage in geotechnical applications. The densely needle-punched, nonwoven matrix of staple fibres in Secutex® keeps granular layers in place and provides efficient in-plane transmissivity for support in road, wall, and other engineered structures at a mine.